


warmth

by Molnija



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ... haha. semi., Canon Compliant, Christmas, Crushes, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Winter, although not really ... if it was semi wouldn't be playing with the team anymore whoops, crushes and denial ..., let's call it semi canon compliant, semi eita did never ask for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 01:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13136475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molnija/pseuds/Molnija
Summary: Eita came to the ice skating rink to forget about Shirabu. Life has other plans, because of course it does.





	warmth

**Author's Note:**

> I had a long set of notes for this but then AO3 decided to be a jerk and give me an error upon posting it and frankly I am Done. all I'll say is
> 
> a) generic title is generic I'm so sorry  
> b) Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!  
> c) first time writing Semi and it turned out ... whimsical? it feels right so it's okay  
> d) I have a lot of Semishira feelings lately. don't you think they're a winter kind of ship? compare to, say, Yahashira, which is definitely an autumn kind of ship

_Last Christmas_ is playing on every speaker, it’s too cold for it to snow, and Eita’s legs are tired but he won’t leave the rink.

There’s three reasons for it – first, this is the only thing that’s keeping him adequately warm. Second, it’s fun to slide around the ice with no care in the world, hindered only by the occasional person coming in, though there’s surprisingly few people here for how packed the rest of the Christmas fair is, so it’s not that bad. And third, he really needs to get his thoughts off a certain bratty kouhai of his.

He stops at the corner for a moment to lean against the low wall and look into the crowd, resting for a bit. The relatively small rink is standing in a somewhat remote area of the fair, surrounded mostly by Christmas trees and the occasional food stand, and most passengers don’t pay them any mind, walking past without a care in the world. It’s just past four in the afternoon, but night has already fallen, so it’s quite the picturesque atmosphere with all the warm lights glowing in the darkness and coating them into a festive aura.

Even so, he can’t get into it. Yesterday’s practice was tough and he’s still not over it – specifically not the part where the coach of the college team they played a practice match against made a great deal out of comparing him to Shirabu and telling him how much he sucks in comparison. Eita always assumed he was actually a good setter, if not the right one for Shiratorizawa, but now he’s kind of questioning it.

Of course, since that coach is long gone and he probably won’t see her again, all his frustrations have turned to Shirabu, because being annoyed with Shirabu is easy. He’s already enough of a pain to begin with, never seeming to take any of Eita’s well-meant criticism and tips into account and instead having the wonderfully bothersome attitude of ‘fuck you, fight me’. Except he’d never fight him, because they both know for a fact Eita would kick his butt. But figuratively speaking, Shirabu is impossibly irritating.

It doesn’t help him that he’s cute. Being cute is not a replacement for a decent personality.

 _Begrudgingly_ , he does have to accept that his obnoxious kouhai is good at his job, perhaps better than himself, and he admits to feeling some sense of pride surge up in his gut when he sees him pull a good move, but that’s all there is to it. He supposes if he wanted to really dig for something to like about Shirabu, he could say he’s determined and has a unique sense of pride and motivation …

Damn it, now he’s thinking about him again. He came here to stop doing that very thing.

Eita shakes his head but it does nothing to get rid of the thoughts, and now he doesn’t feel like skating again either. Maybe he should just leave. Pick up his stuff and go elsewhere. This place is big, after all.

But that sounds like so much of a hassle too that he just ends up staring into the crowd for a little while longer, until he starts mentally tuning out. _Last Christmas_ ends and is replaced by some idol song he never heard before. It’s reasonably soothing.

That is until one particular face headed right toward the rink snaps him out of that state almost violently quickly.

Out of all the people that could _possibly_ be coming here, of course it has to be him. Eita isn’t sure if he should ragequit or laugh.

Shirabu spots him a few seconds after, and the expression he pulls is incredibly hilarious. He looks like he just got caught by his worst enemy without wearing pants. To be fair, Eita could be considered his worst enemy, at least on the team, but he is, in fact, wearing pants. He’s also wearing a dark brown coat and a plaid scarf that looks cosy and way too soft for someone as stingy as Shirabu. His cheeks are coloured red in the cold air and his cinnamon-coloured hair (very fitting for the season) is a bit tousled from the wind.

It’s such a shame. Such looks should go to a better person.

In the back of his mind, Satori is unhelpfully reminding him that his own fashion sense sucks, but he thinks he still looks fine today. Of course, he thinks he always looks fine and Satori is just going on about things he has no business to be going on about, but at least when he met him earlier, he received an appreciative nod, so even if Satori is right, which he isn’t, he still passed the test. Granted, the sweater he’s wearing was a present from Reon last year, and his coat covers up everything anyway, so that probably wasn’t hard.

Why does he even care? He shouldn’t care. Nothing in this situation would prompt him to care.

“Semi-san,” Shirabu says and his breath forms a little white cloud in the air. Why he’s even speaking to him instead of leaving and pretend he never saw anything is beyond him, but he assumes it’s life’s way of telling him to suck it.

Normally, Eita would be polite and say hello, ask how it’s going, try making smalltalk about the weather. But today isn’t normally and he’s still pissed off, so what comes out of his mouth is a very disgruntled, “What are you doing here?”

The other’s expression immediately shifts into something less shocked and more neutral, though he’s well aware that ‘neutral’ means ‘annoyed’ when it’s about the two of them. “I could ask you the same thing. Don’t you have some practice to do?”

“It’s a Sunday, you little …” He catches himself before he can get too mean. In the end, Shirabu doesn’t really deserve this, all he’s done is play better volleyball than him and be too smug about it. Recently, the latter hasn’t even been the case much, but they’re so used to it nowadays that he just takes it as their default. He sighs and shakes his head slowly, then points at a small hut hidden behind one of the trees. “Never mind. They’ve moved the skate rental over there so if you’re looking for that, there you go.”

Shirabu looks at him for a moment, clearly dumbfounded though he doesn’t know why, before nodding and heading off.

Great. Now the place he went to for personal space is going to be occupied by the one person he wanted to get away from. But he still doesn’t really feel like leaving – maybe they can just stay out of each other’s way, and he does kind of want to see what Shirabu looks like on skates. Somehow it’s a strange mental image.

He returns three minutes later with skates in his hand and sits down on one of the wooden benches just outside the rink. There’s ones just like these on the other side, so Eita supposes the whole ‘leaving each other alone’ thing is out. What’s his problem? He thought it was well established that they’d rather avoid each other, and now it almost looks like Shirabu is seeking out his company.

It’s a thought he would have never even considered before today, and it makes him feel strange things. Maybe they’ll get along someday after all. It’s not like he’s never _trying_.

Or maybe he’s just here to brag about his skating skills, which sounds like the more reasonable option.

He finds a strange sense of entertainment in watching Shirabu tying his skates, mostly because he’s screwed up twice now and is growing increasingly frustrated by the second. It’s like he’s never done this before – and even if he hadn’t, this isn’t too different from just tying boots. Maybe his hands are frozen, his fingers do look a little red.

After a solid three minutes of trial and error on his kouhai’s part, Eita decides this display is too pathetic to let go on like this. It _is_ almost Christmas, can’t hurt to show a bit of good spirit. He sighs and steps out of the rink to kneel down before him and take matters into his own hands.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Ah, he forgot this was Shirabu. For a moment, it almost felt like a pleasant encounter. “Helping you not make a fool out of yourself.”

He gives a disgruntled huff, but doesn’t slap his hand away, which he notes down as a success. When his work is finished in significantly less time than it would have taken the other, he looks up and sees Shirabu’s head turned away, eyes narrowed staring at nothing in particular and lips pulled into a slight pout. _Cute._

(Still not cute enough, of course.)

“Alright, now let’s hope you can skate on your own.”

“Sure I can,” Shirabu hisses and stands up, only to fall right back onto the bench. Eita raises an eyebrow and he tries again, this time staying upright, if on very wobbly legs.

His hope may be fruitless. This guy doesn’t look like he’s ever even worn skates.

That determination is to be admired though; he takes one careful step forward and doesn’t fall over, and then another until he’s holding the railing and is relatively safe. Now he only needs to get on the ice. Considering his current state, he may need help with that.

Eita goes back on the ice with no problems whatsoever and holds out a hand to him, only to receive a deadly glare. Fine, then he won’t. It’s not his problem.

Shirabu puts his first foot on the ice – then the second—

The high-pitched squeal resonates over the entire fair when he slips and falls straight on his ass.

Yeah, definitely not an ice skater. Or inhumanly out of practice.

“I know how to do this,” he says, still sitting on the ice and unable to get up.

“Do you now.” This is both funny and sad, and Eita is many things but not a monster, so he bends down and pulls him up like a very prideful cat. (So, just an ordinary cat.) Shirabu shoots him another look that could kill but doesn’t say anything, because at this point they both know he can’t fool anyone. He grips the railing like his life depends on it, refusing to look at Eita, instead opting to stare at the ground. “If you came here to learn how to skate, wouldn’t it have been better to, you know, bring a teacher?”

Shirabu mumbles something he doesn’t understand.

“Excuse me?”

“I said I can do this on my own! It can’t be that hard, right? All you do is slide on ice!” Technically he has a point, but put into practice, that ‘sliding on ice’ is more difficult than it sounds. Eita has his own painful memories from when his brother taught him back in elementary school.

“Which you’ve been doing a great job at so far.”

“Shut up,” he mutters and hides in his scarf. Now he just looks like a tsundere.

“Fine, then I’ll leave. Have fun!”

He isn’t really planning to leave, someone has to make sure his kouhai won’t seriously injure himself, but the look of sheer horror on Shirabu’s face is too good to pass up. “No!” he says, likely before he even noticed what it entails, and when he does realise, his face is heating up with a blush that the cold isn’t to blame for anymore. “I mean … I don’t … I don’t care …”

“But?” God, it’s fun to have the upper hand for once. Usually he’s the one who sucks.

“Ugh …” His face is now the colour of your average tomato. “If you have some sort of helper complex or whatever, I guess I wouldn’t mind if you taught me the basics …”

Oh, sweet victory. He could ask him for a nicer way to phrase it, but he doubts he’ll get anything of the sort, so he’ll take it. “Alright, if you insist.”

This time, his mumble is clearly understandable as “I fucking hate you”.

It’s been a while since Eita had to last teach this to anyone, the last one was his niece and she’s a five year old prodigy. He can imagine dealing with a stubborn second year is a whole different beast, but the lessons are the same either way. “First, take my hands.”

“What? No.”

“Fine, then fall over.” Shirabu reaches for his hands in record speed, still staring at anything but Eita. It’s very amusing. “Before you go off by yourself, you need to actually stay standing. Stay off the wall and focus on keeping your balance. Be careful.”

He’s wearing gloves, but Shirabu isn’t, and it’s a weird kind of feeling – as if their skin was almost touching but not quite.

Thankfully, once he figures out how to not fall on his butt again, Shirabu seems to have a decent sense of balance. His legs are still wobbly, but otherwise he’s at least standing, and when Eita lets go, he could almost pass for someone who knows how to skate.

Of course that’s because he’s not moving in any direction, and as soon as he attempts to, he’s down on the ice again before Eita can tell him to wait. He’s only got himself to blame for this one.

He groans quietly and glares up at him. “Stop grinning!”

“I’m not,” he says, holding back laughter, then reaches out for him. This time, Shirabu has understood that he won’t get up on his own and takes his hand.

Eita may have underestimated how difficult it is to pull a newbie up on the ice skating rink, because as soon as he thinks he’s safe, Shirabu loses his balance and slips again – this time directly against him.

The impact knocks him backwards a bit but he keeps up somehow, clutching onto him in an attempt to stay upright before this ends in even more of a disaster as it already is. The wall saves them, though hitting into it with his back hurts a bit but it’s nothing too bad and his coat acts as some fluffy layer of protection.

“Didn’t I tell you to be careful—” His words trail off into nothing when he realises the position they’re currently in.

Shirabu is shorter than him, so there’s no reason for his face to be so close. Somehow their noses are almost touching, Eita’s basically hugging him at this point with the other’s hands resting on his chest, and suddenly it’s impossible to look away.

He never noticed how pretty his eyes were. A similar shade to his hair – light brown like cinnamon, fitting for the season. With a deep red blush starkly contrasting his pale skin and his lips ever so slightly opened, he looks almost fragile, even though Eita knows he’s not.

Shirabu notices a moment later and pushes himself away from him, sliding back on the ice. He’s proud of him not falling over for about half a second before he realises just what happened – hold on, what _did_ just happen? For a small window of time, everything went quiet.

His face burns so brightly he could probably pass as a heater.

“U-uhm, yeah, not … Not like that,” he stammers out and rubs the back of his head, looking away at nothing, which is still the better option than looking at Shirabu. “Next time wait for me until I tell you you can go … I guess …”

This wasn’t his plan. He came here to forget his anger about Shirabu and while that has been a success, that anger has been replaced by something even less comfortable. God, he hopes Satori isn’t around to have seen this. He shouldn’t be, but you never know.

Let’s just forget about this. Let’s never bring this up ever again …

“Sorry,” Shirabu says and it’s like he’s entered a parallel universe.

“You? Are apologising? To _me_?” That can’t be right. Maybe he’s dreaming. He has to be dreaming. There’s no other way.

“Of course. I’m a decent fucking person.” Ah, that sounds more like him. The fact that he’s still not looking at him – at least it appears that way from Eita’s peripheral vision – isn’t helping his case though. “Let’s just continue with this if you aren’t hurt or anything.”

It’s difficult to concentrate when your mind is continuously shouting at you to run away and become a sheep herder on an isolated island in the middle of nowhere, but eventually he settles into a rhythm. While he wouldn’t make it a career, Eita does like teaching people things, and Shirabu is a fast learner so it’s not overly frustrating.

Now, however, he’s way more aware of how close they are. Holding hands to stabilise him. Shirabu clutching to his coat when he tries letting go only to realise he doesn’t know how to go anywhere but forward, so he clings to the nearest thing, which is Eita more often than not. Occasionally he runs into him again, and he tries keeping him at a relatively sane distance but he also doesn’t want him to get hurt.

The mental stage he’s in right now could be described as ‘efficient, but inwardly screaming’. He’s not used to Shirabu listening to his advice, let alone being willing to learn something completely new from him. Actually, he’s not used to him _needing_ to. Shirabu is that boy who got into the regular line-up of Shiratorizawa despite not being there on a sports scholarship. The boy who fit the team so perfectly he essentially threw Eita right out of there and barred him to the bench and the position of pinch server. No matter how much he wants to believe he has things he can hold over him still, he’s aware that it’s not really the case.

He’s never seen him vulnerable like this and frankly, that’s a difficult thing to deal with.

His legs were tired when Shirabu came here but now he’s not feeling that way at all anymore. He doesn’t know for how long they’ve been here, only measures time in small improvements his kouhai makes, until suddenly he’s waiting at the railing for Shirabu on the other side of the rink to skate toward him.

He’s still slow, looks unsure on his legs, and anyone could see how much of an amateur he is, but he’s moving forward on his own with somewhat competent strides. Halfway across the path, he accelerates, and Eita can’t help his smirk. Ever the competitive one, huh? Not that he’s any different.

It is kind of troubling that Shirabu isn’t slowing down; in fact, he’s only getting faster, even though he should really be braking right about now unless he wants to run into him again—

He gets the air knocked out of him when they collide. This time hurts a bit more since he was faster, but other than that this is alarmingly reminiscent of their first collision: Eita with his back to the wall and Shirabu pressed against him, and he thanks all the gods he can spontaneously think of that there’s no way he can feel his racing heartbeat through their clothes.

This time, though, their awkward eye contact turns into laughter.

“I guess I forgot to teach you how to brake,” he says, immediately followed by a giggle.

Shirabu gives him a look that’s probably supposed to be deadpan, but it’s not really working. “Who needs braking when I have a perfectly fine cushion right here?”

“ _Hey_! I’m a human being, not your personal meatshield!”

“Are you sure?” Shirabu scoffs. “I mean, look at your hair, no human would wear that.”

“Say that again and I’m telling Wakatoshi you couldn’t skate. Besides, have you seen your own hairstyle?” Eita’s is perfectly fine, thank you very much. Dyeing it is always a hassle and he’s not doing that to get ridiculed by Mr. Straight Bangs over here.

He has to admit though, bantering with him like this without any malicious intent or underlying hostility is a welcome change of pace. He’s never laughed with him, not once – actually, he doesn’t remember ever hearing him laugh in general. Maybe he just never paid attention it. In which case he’s a stupid, stupid man, because it’s just as cute as the rest of him.

Instead of the snarky remark he expects, what he gets is a sudden feeling of intense confusion when Shirabu wraps his arms around him and rests his head on his shoulder, and just like that their funny little conversation is replaced by something much less funny and much more unnerving.

Why is Shirabu hugging him? Did he miss something?

He takes a deep breath wondering what the hell he is supposed to say to that, but before he can utter a single sound, he hears him mumble into his shoulder, “Not. One. Word.”

Fine then. He’ll die in silence. It’s okay.

He stopped paying attention to the songs going on in the background, but now that he’s focused on being quiet and trying to decide whether he likes this – he’s leaning strongly toward yes – he stops to listen again. The one playing right now is one he doesn’t know the name of, but he remembers it from his childhood. Back then he thought it was stupid. Right now, the lyrics hit a bit too close to home. _Always watching … Never reaching … But this Christmas I’m gonna risk it all … This Christmas I’m not afraid to fall ..._

It’s not even Christmas yet. Knowing Satori, there’ll be mistletoes in the gym tomorrow. Life is going to be very stressful.

He doesn’t think he minds it though.

**Author's Note:**

> the last song is Wrapped in Red by Kelly Clarkson! ♥
> 
> thanks for reading and I hope you have a great rest of the year, everyone! ༝﹡˖˟ ⸜₍⁽ˊ꒳ˋ⁾₎⸝ ༝﹡˖˟
> 
> hq!! tumblr: akaashi-tooru.tumblr.com/ come yell with me about rarepairs and whatever else you want to yell about, I'm open for everything


End file.
